Chapter 21
twenty-one
Talon stiffens behind me. “This is a Theta event, fancy! You didn’t tell me that!”
“Oh…I thought you knew.” I blink up at him, slow and wide-eyed. It’s bad enough that I had to break down and bring him because he asked my parents where I’d been.
But my hope is that it sets Aiden off into an absolute frenzy of jealous rage.
Heat scorches the side of my face before I even turn. Aiden stands at the center of the crowd, eyes honed on me, hot with the promise of punishment. His shoulders roll, tight with restrained violence, every breath a warning tremor.
I tug Talon forward with me, refusing to break eye contact with the man who’s already claimed me in every way but legally. Aiden doesn’t move, but the whiskey on his breath is so thick I can almost smell it from here.
“You seem mad,” I say, and his jaw clicks.
“You can’t be here with him, Ashlyn.”
“I can be here with whoever I want to be, Aiden.”
“That’s breaking our bet, and you know it. I won you, and you have to obey my rules.” Every word is slurred. Every one filled with an ominous threat.
“You don’t own anything,” I say, but his finger laces underneath the collar still surrounding my neck.
“Oh? Then what’s this?” Voice lethal, I almost shiver from the iron-clad clench of his jawline.
His face leans into mine until the spit from his words clips into my mouth. The taste of him reminds me of everything I long for. If only the ice in his chest would melt a fraction for me.
“You showed up with more of your girls,” I fire back. “Figured I’d show up with mine.” Yes, I know that I called Talon a girl.
Talon tries, “Hey, man—”
Aiden’s attention slices to him like a knife. “You really want to speak to me, Moretti? I’ve seen your dick size. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
Talon swallows audibly, glancing around the bar. Aiden’s drunk, eyes half open, swaying slowly on his feet. And every Theta in here smells blood, ready to fight for their leader. Not that they’d have to. I’ve watched Aiden fight. In the ring. From the shadows. When we were at Crest…
He doesn’t like to play by the rules, and Talon knows he’d go down with one blow.
Instead, he snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me back toward the bar as Ryan Cardell and Landon Turner gather Aiden up and help him calm down, shoving another whiskey into his chest.
“Let’s go, Ash. This is stupid,” Talon says, pretending to wait on the bartender.
He pulls me toward the bar, and I stumble. Leaning in close, he grits out through his clenched teeth, “What the fuck were you thinking, bringing me here?”
“You said you were upset we hadn’t seen each other in a week. Figured you missed me and wanted to get a drink.”
“Not here! Not with a bunch of Thetas and—” Stopping himself, he glances toward Aiden’s crowd, looking panicked. “Him.”
I swallow. “Just ignore him—”
“I saw you two, you know.”
My breath catches. I pretend I didn’t hear him. “What?”
“My freshman year. You said you were staying home, so I went to the fights at the Lodge.”
I lose a breath. It could have been numerous times he’s talking about, so I just blink innocently.
“He spotted you in the crowd and didn’t seem to like that. And afterward, I saw you two in the hall arguing with each other like…”
Like people who mattered to each other.
Like people who hated and wanted in equal measure.
Talon’s brown eyes trail over the crowd, as if he’s putting things together.
Aiden caught me stalking him. It wasn’t the first time. I pretended like I had no clue he was going to be there that night. We probably fought over me being near him. Gloating about how happy I was.
But all I wanted was his hands on me. The feel of his heat near my body. A whiff of his cologne—dark, sweet, and soothing. Like honeyed whiskey. It calmed me in a way I needed at that moment.
My cheeks flame. But I don’t say a word.
Talon looks at me again, and something tired settles behind his eyes. As if he already lost. Or maybe he finally accepted it that night.
“I want to dance,” I tell him, then pull him closer to where a few of the Omegas are crowded near the DJ booth in the back room. The muscle in the back of Talon’s jaw flexes, but I know he’ll do what I say. He doesn’t want to walk out now and look like a wimp.
So we rock from side to side. Close. The way I taught him to dance back in high school, when he started calling me fancy feet. Because he couldn’t keep up.
He still can’t.
Aiden’s eyes follow my every move as he sits at the high-top with his crew. But then Hailey Twinston bounces close by him, and he pulls her onto his lap…my lap.
With a snide glance at me, he leans in and kisses Hailey’s neck as she giggles.
Where’s a lit torch when you need one?
I swivel around and toss my arms around Talon’s neck, raise onto my toes, and plant a long, hot kiss on him. He tastes like the beer and cigarettes he had earlier, before we got here. But mostly, he tastes like the perfect ruse to make someone jealous.
Even before I get into another stroke of my tongue, the body in front of me disappears. And when I open my eyes, Aiden has Talon on the ground, wailing on him with his angered fists.
“She’s not yours! Not this month, Moretti! I won her!”
Blood flies from Talon’s face in sprayed gushes, his nose clearly broken. He tries to fight Aiden off, but it’s no use. Another hit and he’s getting knocked out.
Tade and Landon peel Aiden off until he stumbles to a stand.
Forcefully, he shoves his boys off him and comes at me, gathering me up in his arms, then plants his liquored lips against mine like a battle with our mouths.
Teeth gnawing. Biting. Fingers groping, tangling in my hair.
My hands can’t even push him away. I’m dizzy from lack of oxygen by the time he pulls back and holds me out for everyone in the bar to see.
The crowd is silent, waiting for his announcement, with Talon wallowing on the floor.
“Let it be known. Ashlyn Donovan is mine. She’s property of Aiden Cardell. No one is to touch her or even fucking look at her. Do you all understand? Spread the word.”
With every ounce of mustered ire, I let my palm fly across his face and slap the shit out of him. He glares at me.
His eyes flash, hand snapping toward me—
But I’m already gone, the crowd parting as I vanish out into the street.
The cold night air cuts across my cheeks as I march toward the Omega House parking lot. My pulse is still hammering from the slap, from the way his mouth crushed mine like he could brand me with it.
I dig my keys out with shaking fingers, slide behind the wheel, and slam the door hard enough to make the glass rattle.
Engine on. Headlights slicing through the dark.
I don’t look back toward the bar. Not because I don’t want to, but because if I see him standing there, I might turn around.
The roads out of town are half-empty, blacktop unfurling toward Gnarled Pine Hollow. My dad’s already texted twice to make sure I’ll be safe and arrive tonight instead of showing up for Thanksgiving tomorrow, probably imagining Talon riding shotgun like the perfect son-in-law he wants him to be.
Talon Moretti.
Caliphylla divine, my father would toast him in front of the whole table just for the Moretti name. Mafia ties are a dinner conversation where I come from. Mainly for some favor he owes his uncle. Or cousin. Some type of casino thing I don’t understand. Nor do I want to…
Because my mind’s not on Talon.
No. As the highway lights blur past in a whirr, the lights of opening night at Crest return to me.
Second summer back at Crest…
Two more to go.
We’ve been circling each other all night, teasing from opposite ends of the campfire crowd while fireworks cracked over the lake. Until a hand slips into mine and tugs me into the woods.
We run, giggling, panting, and hiding behind broad oak trunks.
Our spot grows closer with every sprinted step.
The creak of the cedar dock aches with familiar groans as my boat shoes glide over it.
Fishy smells of lake water and the dust of gunpowder thicken the air.
Water waves like a black sheet spread before us, the ripples dancing under bursts of colorful lights high above us in the starlit sky.
My heart pounds against my ribs, and not from the run around Lake Crest. I didn’t know how I would greet Aiden once we were alone. Not after slyly messaging him online for a year and sneakily video calling him whenever my parents were asleep.
I’m already spoken for. Future mapped out, neat and ugly.
I’m to be traded to a mafia heir’s son, not tangled up with a billionaire’s pretty boy from the city.
And from what I know, Aiden’s parents would never approve of a girl from Gnarled Pine Hollow with an expunged record and too many sharp edges.
I’m not a match. I’m a risk.
“Hi,” I whisper when he pulls me in front of him.
His steel gaze stares me down as if he thinks I’m going to disappear.
“You finally grew some tits.”
I gasp, shove his chest as he laughs and pulls me closer.
“Not big ones, but you’re still a baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” I say through a laugh.
“No, I guess you’re not. All fourteen now. Big girl.” His smile fades into seriousness. “Bet you have a boyfriend...”
I jut out my lip. “Had to match your girlfriend,” I snap, the image of him with a brunette with big tits at his school’s winter dance invades my head whenever I want to feel rage.
He steps closer until the heat rises between us, and I remember. Those kisses last year. The one before he held me close and told me goodbye until next year. “You sound jealous.”
“I’m not,” I lie, tipping my chin up.
But he only holds it with his fist, and my stomach does flip-flops rapidly as he leans in close. Barely above a whisper, he murmurs, “Then who’s that fuck in the pictures on your Pixtagram with your dad?”
Talon Moretti. Skinny, annoying, pimpled prick who I keep getting paired with because his uncle’s boss is friends with my family.
“Who’s that fuck in the photos of you on yours?”
His arm presses against my back, and my pulse thunders.
Even harder as he pulls me in close. The reds, blues, and purples bounce off the reflection in his eyes as the fireworks boom loudly overhead.
Scents of the woods, musky and adventurous.
Reminding me of that kiss: my first…and our last of the summer.
His lips brush mine until I hold my breath, hoping we can be right back to that night. The one before we said goodbye.
“She’s nothing. Doesn’t matter who I’m with or you’re with…” Seriousness crosses his usual smirky face as he tells me, “Doesn’t matter who your daddy approves of. You’re mine, Ashlyn. You’ll always be mine, baby girl. Always.”
As tears heat my eyes, he leans in and reminds me of the reason I can make it through the hell of The Crest. And then he gives me a reason I can survive.
“Baby, I’ll tell you right now. We’ve got summer.”
“But what about after the next? You’ll be gone. I’ll be here alone…” I whimper, trying to stuff the tears back. But my heart already aches, thinking of letting him go when we haven’t even had our full second summer together.
He snorts as if it’s absurd, and I flush with embarrassment until he says, “I’ll be eighteen. And I’ll show up and take you away from here. Steal you to be with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be eighteen, Cardell! The police will arrest you for kidnapping and throw you in prison!”
“Not if they can’t catch us.” He says it as if he’s thought it through. Like it’s truth. But somewhere he has to know that it’s impossible, right? We can’t get away.
Reality will come between us and rip us apart.
But until then, I’ll pretend. I’ll play along that we have forever.
The memory clings to me like heat from a match, and I press harder on the gas, chasing the road into the dark.
I can still feel the fireworks echoing in my ribs.
I can still feel the way I believed him.